A feral cat feeds from a White-capped Albatross Thalassarche steadi chick on Auckland Island, August 2019; photograph by Stephen Bradley

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James Russell (School of Biological Sciences and Department of Statistics, University of Auckland, New Zealand) and colleagues have published in the journal Notornis on the impacts of introduced mammals on birds on the Auckland Islands, including ACAP-listed White-capped Albatrosses Thalassarche steadi and White-chinned Procellaria aequinoctialis.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Since the European discovery of the Auckland Islands, at least ten species of land mammals have been introduced there.  Most arrived in the first half of the ninteenth [sic] century during periods of exploitation by sealers and whalers, followed by short-lived Māori and European settlements at Port Ross.  Several species required multiple introductions before becoming blished.  For those populations that naturalised, cattle (Bos taurus) occupied Enderby Island and were eradicated by 1993, goats (Capra aegagrus hircus) remained restricted to the northern end of Auckland Island and were eradicated by 1991, while pigs (Sus scrofa) spread across the entire Auckland Island and remain there today.  Rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) established on Rose and Enderby Islands, and were eradicated in 1993.  Cats (Felis catus) and mice (Mus musculus domesticus) were both first recorded in 1840 on Auckland Island and remain there today.  Rats (Rattus spp.) have never established on the Auckland Islands.  Collectively, cattle, goats, sheep (Ovis aries), pigs, and rabbits transformed habitats and altered ecosystem processes, and suppressed tussock, megaherbs, and woody vegetation on Auckland, Enderby, Rose, Ewing, and Ocean Islands.  Cats and pigs are together responsible for the extirpation or major reduction of surface-nesting and burrowing seabird colonies, and ground-nesting land birds from Auckland Island.  Before dying out on Enderby Island, pigs had similar impacts there.  Mice have altered invertebrate community composition and are likely responsible for lower abundancies of wētā (Dendroplectron aucklandense) and large weevils (Curculionidae) on Auckland Island.  Disappointment Island remained free of introduced mammals, while on Adams Island they had only fleeting and minimal impact.  Humans also had direct impacts on birds through hunting for consumption, with large surface-nesting seabirds severely affected around Port Ross.  The Auckland Island merganser (Mergus australis) was driven to extinction by presumed mammal predation and well-documented museum collecting.  Eradication of pigs, cats, and mice from Auckland Island and Masked Island (Carnley Harbour) would remove the last introduced mammals from the New Zealand subantarctic region.”

This publication forms part of a compilation of 19 papers appearing in a special issue of the journal Notornis of Birds New Zealand that covers many aspects of the avifauna of the Auckland Islands.  The special issue is also being made available as a 436-page book with the title Lost Gold: Ornithology of the subantarctic Auckland Islands.  Edited by Colin Miskelly and Craig Symes, it can be ordered for purchase (click here).  An interview with the two editors gives information about their work with the book.  Click here to access abstracts for all 19 papers.

With thanks to Colin Miskelly, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

Reference:

Russell, J.C., Horn, S.R., Miskelly, C.M., Sagar, R.L. & Taylor, R.H. 2020.  Introduced land mammals and their impacts on the birds of the subantarctic Auckland Islands.  Notornis 67: 247-268.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 29 April 2020

The Kure Atoll Conservancy is a non-profit foundation dedicated to supporting management programmes that enhance biological diversity, ecosystem health and cultural resources of the Kure Atoll Seabird Sanctuary in the USA’s North-Western Hawaiian Islands.  The NGO works to develop additional funding through proposal writing and donor requests to conduct habitat restoration, pollution prevention, monitoring, education outreach and more.  The contributions of volunteers stationed on the atoll for six-month periods form an essential part of the conservancy’s work (click here).

Kure Atoll (the world's most northerly coral atoll) at the western end of the North-Western Hawaiian Islands supports on its 86-ha Green Island important populations of Black-footed Phoebastria nigripes and Laysan P. immutabilis Albatrosses and of other seabirds, as well as in recent years a single female-female pair of globally Vulnerable Short-tailed Albatrosses P. albatrus.

Black-footed and Laysan Albatrosses on Kure

Kure Atoll’s Short-tailed Albatross pair – both are females that lay infertile eggs

Photographs by Cynthia Vanderlip

Black-footed and Laysan Albatrosses on Kure Atoll

Cynthia Vanderlip, photograph by Kevin Sund

Cynthia Vanderlip is the founder and Executive Director of the Kure Atoll Conservancy.  In 2002 she began supervising the habitat restoration and biological monitoring at Kure Atoll for the Hawaiian Department of Land and Natural Resources.  She writes to ACAP Latest News in support of World Albatross Day: “Laysan and Black-footed Albatrosses nesting in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument are living near sea level where climate change is destroying their breeding grounds.  It is time to prepare habitat in Hawaii's high islands and invite them back to live with us where they once thrived.”

The Hawaiian Islands are well served by environmental NGOs which work to conserve seabirds and their island habitats.  Kure Atoll Conservancy joins Friends of Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge (FoHI), Friends of Kauaʻi Wildlife Refuges (FKWR), Friends of Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge (FOMA) and the Hawaiian Audubon Society (HAS) in this work and in supporting the inauguration of an annual World Albatross Day on 19 June.  Mahalo to all.

With thanks to Cynthia Vanderlip, Kure Biological Field Station Supervisor, Kure Atoll Seabird Sanctuary, State of Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 28 April 2020

There are only a few ornithological institutes with an international standing around the world.  Surely, one of them must be the well-known Cornell Lab of Ornithology, based at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York in the USA since 1915.  The Lab’s mission is “to interpret and conserve the earth’s biological diversity through research, education, and citizen science focused on birds”.

An important part of Cornell Lab’s work is its operation of ‘bird cams’ as a free educational resource, usually set up at occupied nests, that live stream 24 hours a day to the Internet.  The Lab writes on its web site: “Our viewers tell us that watching the cams is a life changing experience: an unprecedented learning experience that they liken to virtual field trips or field biology in their living room”.  After a live camera that followed breeding Laysan Albatrosses Phoebastria immutabilis on the Hawaiian island of Kauai over several breeding seasons, viewers can now watch an Endangered Northern Royal Albatross Diomedea sanfordi nest in the mainland breeding colony within the Taiaroa Head Nature Reserve in New Zealand.  The egg hatched on 31 January and the growing chick can now be watched as it waits to get fed by its parents.  The operation of the ‘Royal Cam’ is partnered with New Zealand’s Department of Conservation.

A live-streaming Cornell Lab camera is also currently following the breeding attempt of a pair of Endangered Bermuda Petrels or Cahows Pterodroma cahow in their burrow on Nonsuch Island in Bermuda.

In addition, the Cornell Lab manages an Online Guide to Birds and Bird Watching that offers courses on bird biology, identification and the like.  The Lab’s eBird facility is a way thousands of bird watchers around the world have become ‘citizen scientists’ by logging their observations for professional study.

Dr John Fitzpatrick, Executive Director, Cornell Lab of Ornithology

ACAP Latest News reached out to the Cornell Lab to gain its support for this year’s inaugural World Albatross Day on 19 June.  The Lab’s Executive Director, Dr John Fitzpatrick replied, saying: “Nobody ever forgets the experience of seeing his or her first albatross.  For years the Cornell Lab of Ornithology has been proud to feature them, as well as Bermuda’s Endangered Cahow (Bermuda Petrel), on our Bird Cam websites for all the world to admire and learn from.  These magnificent birds of the high seas ride the oceanic winds like no other.  Reversing their global declines must become one of humanity’s top conservation priorities.  We heartily endorse honoring and celebrating these birds on World Albatross Day 2020.”

With this welcome support the EGI joins three other prestigious ornithological institutes supporting ‘WAD2020’: the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology at the UK’s in UK’s University of Oxford, the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa and the Yamashina Institute for Ornithology in Japan.

With thanks to John Fitzpatrick, Director, Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 27 April 2020

White-capped Albatross by ABUN artist Lea Finke, from a photograph by Graham Parker

Colin Miskelly (Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, New Zealand) and colleagues have published in the journal Notornis on historical and recent records of birds of the Auckland Islands, including of six ACAP-listed species.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“The Auckland Islands are the largest island group in the New Zealand subantarctic region, and have the most diverse avifauna, including eight endemic taxa.  We present the first vcomprehensive review of the avifauna of the Auckland Islands, based on a database of 23,028 unique bird records made between 1807 and 2019.  At least 45 species breed (or bred) on the islands, with a further 77 species recorded as visiting the group as migrants, vagrants, or failed colonisers.  Information on the occurrence of each species on the different islands in the group is presented, along with population estimates, a summary of breeding chronology and other reproductive parameters, and diet where known.  The frequency at which 33 bird species were encountered during visits to the seven largest islands is compared graphically to facilitate comparison of each island’s bird fauna in relation to habitat differences and the history of introduced mammals.  Disappointment Island (284 ha) is the least modified island in the group.  However, it lacks forest, and so has a very restricted land bird fauna, lacking ten species that breed on other islands in the group.  Auckland Island (45,889 ha) is the only major island in the group where introduced mammals are still present.  As a result, it also has a depauperate bird fauna, with at least 11 species completely absent and a further seven species reported at lower frequencies than on the next largest islands (Adams and Enderby Islands).”

This publication forms part of a compilation of 19 papers appearing in a special issue of the journal Notornis of Birds New Zealand that covers many aspects of the avifauna of the Auckland Islands.  The special issue is also being made available as a 436-page book with the title Lost Gold: Ornithology of the subantarctic Auckland Islands.  Edited by Colin Miskelly and Craig Symes, it can be ordered for purchase (click here).  An interview with the two editors gives information about their work with the book.  Click here to access abstracts for all 19 papers.

With thanks to Colin Miskelly.

Reference:

Miskelly, C.M., Elliott, G.P., Parker, G.C., Rexer-Huber, K., Russ, R.B, Taylor, R.H., Tennyson, A.J.D. &Walker, K.J. 2020.  Birds of the Auckland Islands, New Zealand subantarctic.  Notornis 67: 59–151.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 26 April 2020